Who Will Replace Bryce Hall? Safety Cross Slides Over

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Now that All-American candidate Bryce Hall is out for the remainder of the season, who will replace him in the Virginia secondary?

Junior cornerback De’Vante Cross filled in at the spot for Hall at Miami, and apparently will stick at the position for this weekend’s home game against Duke in a big ACC Coastal Division battle. Virginia, Duke, and North Carolina are presently tied for first in the division with 2-1 league records (UNC plays at 1-2 Virginia Tech on Saturday).

Cross, at 6-foot-2, 210, is a big corner who had previously started all six games at safety.

“Nick Howell (UVA’s co-defensive coordinator) does a really nice job of prioritizing and ranking players daily and weekly in the event that a player is hurt, who would then be next up,” Bronco Mendenhall said Monday. “That’s not specific to position played. It’s to always allow us to have the best four or five on the field at any one time.”

As was the case at Miami, when Hall went down, a safety (Cross) moved to corner, because he had been evaluated as the next-best player.

“Miami did a nice job of — and not a lot of coordinators do this, or not a lot of teams do — but sometimes with an injury, the gameplan remains as if nothing changed,” Mendenhall said. “As it became critical, that’s where [Miami] targeted, was Bryce’s position. De’Vante held up well. It doesn’t mean that he played as did Bryce, nor should he.

“We have some adjustments we need to make there and we will, but De’Vante, his ability to play corner, is what will happen.”

Mendenhall said that Jaylor Baker is the next corner that will be considered. Virginia previously lost both Darrius Bratton and Shawn Smith due to injury.

Meanwhile, Chris Moore and Antonio Clary would be the next players up at safety should the Cavaliers experience any further injuries in the secondary.

There was one particular series late in the third quarter, just after Virginia had cut Miami’s lead to 7-6, that the Hurricanes picked on Cross, throwing three consecutive passes in his direction for completions and a pair of first downs before throwing a screen pass for 35 yards.

However, it seemed that Cross settled into the position from that point onward.

Dubois On The Mend?

Senior wide receiver Hasise Dubois left the Miami game after taking a big hit in the end zone late in the third quarter, and did not return. It was a violent hit by Miami safety Amari Carter, who was ejected from the game for targeting.

Mendenhall said that he expects Dubois to play against Duke on Saturday.

“Hasise got hit really hard. He’s recovering,” the coach said. “It was a hard hit, a violent hit, and it’s also part of football. I don’t think the player from Miami needs to be made out in any other way than he was just trying to play football.

“Within the new rules and the way it works, just so happened to impact one of our players. I don’t think it was malicious.”

However, game officials did ignore another Miami player standing over the downed Dubois, taunting him for several seconds with no repercussion.